page_title: Maneless lion
section_title: In Eurasia
hierarchical_section_title: Maneless lion / Modern lions / In Eurasia
caption_attribution_description: Men with live lion. One of Antoin Sevruguin's historical Iran photographs.
context_page_description: The term "maneless lion" or "scanty manes" often refers to a male lion without a mane, or with a weak one. The purpose of the mane is thought to protect the lion in territorial fights. Although lions are known for their mane, not all males have one.
context_section_description: The Asiatic lion is often considered to have a weak mane compared to its cousins in Africa, due to the hot climate in Asia, but this does not always apply. The manes of most lions in ancient Greece and Asia Minor were also less developed and did not extend to below the belly, sides or ulnas. Lions that occurred in Mesopotamia had hair on the underbelly, unlike modern lions in the wilderness of India, and also, a relief from Nineveh in the Mesopotamian Plain shows a lion with underbelly hair. Lions with such smaller manes were also known in the Syrian region, Arabian peninsula and Egypt, while in Gir Forest of India, cases of maneless lions are rarely reported.
  In Iran there are often pictures of stone reliefs with Asiatic lion without mane. In the 19th and 20th centuries (1916) lions were reported without mane.
  J. S. Buckingham related the story of being shown a small natural cavern, which a lion had made his den near Sar-e Pol, and of two young men who went out to kill the lion with the result that one of them was first killed himself (1829). Travelling from Shiraz to Kazerun, Buckingham noted:
  The herds were carefully watched by shepherds during the day, and were all driven into shelter before sunset, as lions were known to have their dens in the neighbourhood, and to prowl here at night, to the terror both of caravans and single passengers.
caption: Men with a restrained lion in Iran[3]
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